Bhubaneswar, Feb. 19 -- The Odisha government has so far identified over 3 lakh deceased ration card beneficiaries during eKYC (Know Your Customer) verification and removed their names from the database of the Public Distribution System, informed Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Minister Krushna Chandra Patra in the Assembly today.

Responding to a query by BJD MLA Ganeswar Behera regarding the number of PDS beneficiaries who have completed the eKYC verification and the number of ghost beneficiaries, the Minister revealed that as many as 3,28,932 ghost beneficiaries were availing ration card benefits. Their names were detected during the eKYC verification and names struck off from the PDS database. Of these, Keonjhar had the maximum num...